What is listeriosis?

According to the National Institute For Communicable Diseases (NICD), listeriosis is a serious bacterial infection.

It can contaminate a wide variety of food types, including meat and meat products, dairy products (unpasteurised and pasteurised), fresh and frozen produce (fruits, vegetables and sprouts) and ready-to-eat products.

This coupled with the fact that it can take up to 70 days for patients to show any symptoms, makes tracing the source of the listeriosis a huge challenge for health authorities.

Important facts about listeriosis

Listeria infection follows consumption of contaminated food, or is transmitted from a pregnant mother to her unborn foetus.

Only a small group of the population are at risk of severe illness due to Listeria infections. This group includes pregnant women, babies under the age of one month, people over the age of 65, and anyone with a weakened immune system (including people who have HIV, those with cancer, people who have kidney or liver diseases, those with diabetes, and people taking certain medications that suppress the immune system – such as corticosteroids or chemotherapy).

Pregnant women are an important high-risk group, as they may transmit the infection to the unborn child. Meningitis and blood infections are the important severe forms of listeriosis.

Listeriois symptoms

If you are in good health, you won’t get sick from eating food containing listeria.

If you do get ill, you’ll have the same symptoms associated with a bad tummy bug, so you’ll have a fever, stomach ache, body aches, nausea and diarrhoea. This usually goes away on its own.

However, it could result in severe illnesses including meningitis, bacteria in the blood, and pregnancy associated complications.